For the past 30 years, more people have been leaving New Jersey than moving in. The Treasury report claims that the number of wealthy people departing spiked after Democrats raised taxes in 2004 on those earning more than $500,000. A survey of tax consultants found that half of them had wealthy clients who had either left, or inquired about leaving, during the last two years.

New Jersey’s economy lost $3 billion worth of income in the five years after 2004, according to the study, and is losing $150 million a year in revenues, all a result of high taxes.

Is this true? Understand first that people move for many reasons. They get a new job, they retire, they seek cheaper housing, they want to be near their families. And if taxes are the reason, it might be the property tax.

This report tries to pin the blame on the 2004 tax hike. But the data in the report show that the exodus of high-income folks started to rise sharply in 2002. Were these people prophetic? The data also show that the exodus dropped sharply beginning in 2005. If the tax was really so noxious, why would that be?

In the final paragraph of this report, even the authors admit that the tax hike may have little or nothing to do with the exodus. And that’s exactly what two economists, one from Princeton University and another from Stanford, concluded in a report issued in June. They found those affected by the tax hike were leaving at about the same rate as those who were earning less.

The survey of consultants is even weaker because the Treasury didn’t ask how many consultants had clients who had left the state. It asked how many had left or "expressed interest" in leaving.

So a consultant who had, say, 30 clients may have had just one of them ask about leaving and none who had actually left. That, we are supposed to believe, supports the theory that high-earners are leaving the state en masse.

Why not ask how many high-earners had actually left? Treasury has no answer to that question, most likely because they wanted to spin the results to align with the governor’s often-stated conviction that taxes are causing an exodus.

Yes, at some point, people will flee taxes. Our tax treaty with Pennsylvania is one example: We invite New Jersey’s richest executives to hop the border by agreeing not to tax them if they live in Pennsylvania. And it’s plausible that many middle-class people choose Pennsylvania to avoid New Jersey’s property tax.

But there is no evidence that a small increase in the income tax causes an exodus of high earners. This report doesn’t change that. It is a weak attempt to support the governor’s ideology with twisted data and a rigged survey.

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As for the politics, the governor knows that Democrats won’t cut the one tax that is progressive. They are more interested in cutting the property tax, or restoring rebates. Starving the state budget with tax cuts for the rich would make that even harder.

So this is political theater. Christie is probably auditioning for a spot on the national ticket as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential choice. That also would explain why he broke a bipartisan tradition in New Jersey earlier this month by abandoning the effort to force a cleanup of Midwestern coal fleets.

When Christie raised taxes on the working poor by cutting their credits, he told us he had no choice because the state could not afford it. He said the same when he cut programs for the poor.

Back at you, governor. If we have to pinch the paychecks of cashiers and janitors, and throw people off state health care plans, then your pals in the executive suites will have to live without a tax cut. Even if that hurts your political career.